Stonyfield Organic, the country's leading organic yogurt maker, plans to reduce its carbon output 30% by the year 2030.

With approval by The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), Stonyfield Organic's target is aligned with the Paris Agreement's broader goals to limit global warming to less than 2°C and cut global greenhouse gas emissions 49%-72% from 2010 levels by 2050.

“With 30 by 30 and OpenTEAM, we are accelerating our sustainability initiatives to do our part to close the gap created by the lack of leadership from the federal government on climate change,” said Gary Hirshberg, Stonyfield Organic co-founder and chief organic optimist. “Our commitment to reducing our company's environmental impact here at Stonyfield Organic is embedded in our longstanding company mission: Healthy Food, Healthy People, and a Healthy Planet. We have proven that a healthy business can play a critical role in a healthy planet, and now we're going further to help make an even bigger impact in the fight against climate change.”

Stonyfield Organic is one of 52 companies in North America (as of Aug. 19) with an approved SBTi target. Globally, 248 companies (as of Aug. 19) have approved targets.

“We know there is great urgency to solve climate change,” said Lisa Drake, director of sustainability innovation at Stonyfield Organic. “A healthy planet is one of Stonyfield's guiding tenets, and we're proud to be among the earliest corporations to take significant action toward driving down global greenhouse gas emissions.

“As a member of the Ceres BICEP Network since 2009, Stonyfield is equally as committed to advocating for policies that will help the U.S. reduce emissions at the pace and scale necessary to tackle climate change,” Drake said. “We are hopeful that more North American companies will join us in making science-based targets a standard business practice to ensure the U.S. remains a global leader in reducing carbon emissions.”

SBTi is a collaboration between Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), World Resources Institute (WRI), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), and is one of the commitments of the We Mean Business Coalition.

“The latest science has made it clear that more needs to be done—and faster—in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and secure a thriving, sustainable economy. The next few years are critical, and companies like Stonyfield Organic have a vital role to play in helping achieve transformation at the pace and scale that is needed,” said Alberto Carrillo Pineda, director of science-based targets and renewable energy at CDP, one of the Science Based Targets initiative partners.

This newly approved target extends Stonyfield Organic's long history of action to reduce its footprint: 20 years of offsetting the carbon impact of its facility energy use; using plant-based plastic; and a steadfast commitment to clean energy and climate advocacy.

Stonyfield recently announced its leadership role in developing OpenTEAM, a new technology platform to help farmers everywhere improve soil health and trap carbon from the atmosphere in the soil, which will play a critical role in helping the company achieve its 30 by 30 target carbon reduction. This comes at a time when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international group of scientists convened by the United Nations, reports on the urgent need to prevent further degradation of land by humans, highlighting the vicious cycle of climate change and land degradation.

In addition to the agriculture sector, Stonyfield Organic's carbon reduction efforts will also focus on the areas of energy, waste, packaging and logistics.

“Few companies have demonstrated as deep a commitment to environmental leadership as Stonyfield Organic,” said Tim Greiner, managing director of Pure Strategies, a sustainability consultancy to leading businesses including Stonyfield. “The company has accomplished many firsts: the first national organic yogurt brand, first U.S. manufacturer to offset 100% of facility energy GHG emissions, the first biopolymer yogurt packaging solution, and one of the first to estimate a dairy company's full life cycle carbon footprint in the industry.

“This new, aggressive goal will require the company to work closely together with its dairy farmers and other business partners to not only drive carbon from its supply chain, but also find ways to draw down carbon and sequester it in the soil,” he continued.